[Updated] General Tips Guide to Frostpunk

Overview

Compact information about small and big tricks to improve your chances.Other Frostpunk Guides:A New Home Survival: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1568791826Fall of Winterhome Survival: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1862068205

General Gameplay

Some ‘basics’ are included for completeness sake.

Buildings will only be constructed when people are free to do so, either in their free time (evening/morning) or when they currently have no job.
There is no need to start the Generator in the initial -20 degree in most maps and difficulties. On Hard, Extreme, and especially on Survival you should at least start the Generator over night, when all people are in their homes.
There is some trickery that can be (ab)used to massively increase work time with Hunters’ Hut through micro management. See in Food*.
People need some time to switch jobs, so don’t shuffle them around too much or wait until night.
Citizens have a priority list. From highest to lowest: build Streets, build Buildings, dismantle, work at Job, go to eat, go to work.
Hope is way more difficult to improve than Discontent. Keep that in mind.
When you fill Discontent to 100% you get a time limit to lower it to a certain value (75%). That can often be achieved instantly by turning on the Overdrive (given heating was an/the issue).
If your Hope drops to 0% and you are on Extreme or Survival: You are done -> Reset. The only thing that will give you any chance is very quick use of Order/Faith Buildings/Abilities/Laws.
Hunters’ Huts do not require any form of heating!** Apparently these tough guys are already super cool.
**Except during Storms! Your Workers will get very ill very quickly, so either you have the Huts sufficiently heated by then or you simply remove all the Workers until the storm is over. This is true for Marathon Storms as well. Not so cool after all.
Using Emergency Shift will kill people. The first one never, the second one always. So if you deem it necessary, keep that in mind. Loosing an Engineer early on might hurt.

Heating

One level of Heating takes 45 minutes to take effect. That means for over night heating: start Level 1 at 17:15. You can shut it down at 8:00 in the morning.
Heat Zones do not stack.
Steam Hubs are more space efficient for heating than the Generator. Their heat level is equal to the Generator’s.
Steam Hubs can also be scheduled. You can put only workplaces around it and set it to 8:00-18:00 or 6:00-20:00 depending on the work times.
Keep in mind, that finishing a heating research will automatically activate it. So heat Level increase will immediately have the Generator power up to that Level and burn the respective coal. And all Steam Hubs will immediately increase their range and burn more coal when the research is completed.
When using Overdrive, you will receive a warning at 98% that it will explode, which is very useful. But mind that it will only happen once! So try to stay below this threshold for as often as possible, in case you actually forget about it later and just lose the game.

Health

Health is arguably the most important and nontransparent mechanic in Frostpunk. In the end, most other mechanics have a direct or indirect relation to it. Therefore, it can easily snowball out of control, especially over long time if unnoticed.

Sick will automatically walk to an empty bed in a staffed healthcare building.
Common Ill will still be assigned to their job, but not work. The respective buildings offer information on how much efficiency is lost due to workers in treatment.
Medical Posts can achieve 100% efficiency with only 3/5 engineers from the get go, given all of them are healthy and working. That is very useful when you lack engineers and want to maximise sickbeds by spreading them out (huge in ‘The Fall of Winterhome’).
Health buildings benefit from Agitator/Shrines.
Overcrowding Law doubles spaces, which is immensely powerful with little negative side effects.
Untreated Sick will become Gravely Ill. It takes 4 days on Easy, 3 days on Normal, 2 days on Hard, and 1 day on Extreme difficulty for every escalation from Sick to Gravely Ill to Death.
Without Sustain Life or Radical Treatment Law, Gravely Ill can not be kept alive or treated and will leave medical facilities. Thus, they will die.
Amputees and Gravely Ill will be removed from their Job and stay at home at full rations, unless a Care House exists or they can be treated in a medical facility.
Care Houses do not heal, they just provide space for Gravely Ill and Amputees, keeping them alive at half food rations.
Prostheses can only be installed after the respective Law was acquired and a Prostheses has been build in a Factory. Installation takes 1 bed in a medical facility and takes as long as treating a common illness.

All of the above is true for Infirmary and House of Healing as well.

Medical Post at 100% will heal sick people in 24 h, Gravely Ill in 48 h.
House of Healing at 100% will heal sick people in 15 h, Gravely Ill in 30 h.
Infirmary at 100% will heal sick people in 12 h, Gravely Ill in 24 h.
The Care House does neither heal nor install Prostheses.

Food

There are two main Resources related to Food: Raw Food and Food Rations.
Raw Food can be acquired through several methods, mainly Hunters and Hothouses (also Outposts, scouting locations, Fishing Harbour).

1 Raw Food will be processed to 2 Food Rations in a Cooking House without any improvements.
People will attempt to eat once a day, requiring 1 Food Ration.
They eat at the Cookhouse, regardless if heated, as long as Food Rations are available.
If citizens don’t eat, they will transition from full to hungry, from hungry to starving, followed by Death. Each step takes time, depending on difficulty. 4 days on Easy, 3 on Normal, 2 on Hard, 1 on Extreme.
Starving people will eat 2 Food to become full and will also attempt to eat Raw Food from the Stash, if no Food Rations are available.
Hungry and Starving citizens raise Discontent. People starving to death will lower Hope.
The Soup Law improves conversion to 2 Raw Food processed into 5 Food Rations, but increases Discontent with each served soup meal.
The Food Additives Law improves conversion to 2 Raw Food processed into 6 Food Rations, but may cause citizens to fall ill.
People may forgo eating if the internal queue of 250 people per Cookhouse is full or if other tasks take priority. Eating has a low priority.
To force people to eat in their free time, all road and building construction has to be halted. Individuals can also be dismissed from their Job during working hours.
With sufficient hungry or starving people, certain Events can be triggered. Especially the Alternative Food Source Event is rather… desperate.

Edit: This appears to be fixed, making the following paragraph obsolete. How dare them correct my loophole 😀

*Since Hunters’ Huts work at night, you can shift workers from day jobs to Hunters’ Huts at night and back as soon as they have returned (there is a circle in every Hut indicating progression). But since people take some time when changing jobs it can happen that they don’t make it in time and wont hunt at all (have to start hunting before 0-1 am or so).
This can be avoided by already having 1 or 2 (healthy) people in the Hut. They will begin the hunting, but the final food you receive will be calculated by active workers at the end of the progression circle.

That can be abused even further when the progression in the Huts start a bit off set (which can be micro managed). You then simply fill the Hunters’ Hut that will finish next and progressively shift the workers through them.
For example, you can get the full Raw Food production from 4 Huts with only ~20 workers of which only 4-8 are actually dedicated Hunters, instead of the full compliment of 60. 8 instead of 60 is a… decent improvement. How the workers manage their lives with 5 jobs and no sleep we will never know. Not our problem!

Workshops

You can use multiple Workshops to increase research speed, but they will stack with diminishing efficiency. Increasing work hours is actually more beneficial than adding another workshop.

One WS with Extended Shift is a 40% increase, while a second WS gives only 30% and requires additional engineers and resources (third adds only 20% and so on). That’s the main reason why you want to get the Extended Shift Law quickly.
Here you can find a complete table[frostpunk.gamepedia.com].

WS benefits from Agitator/Shrine.

Events

In general: When an Event offers an improvement to Hope, take it. If it reduces Hope, do not.

Also, if you are not sure that you can fulfil a promise, better decline. A failed promise will hurt you big time and lose you Hope, while declining the same request even several times will just raise Discontent, which is generally way easier to handle.
Double Rations for working Children: Might very well starve your colony. They are half the size anyway, why would they need double the food??
The Automaton Project: One idle Engineer, no problem. One idle Automaton, maybe a problem. One Steam Core, can very well be a problem and gives different benefits, depending on what you have researched already. Details can be found here[frostpunk.gamepedia.com].

Laws

This section will assume higher difficulties (Extreme, Survival), as the decisions will have a higher impact there or simply are very one sided. If there is a clearly better choice, it will be written bold.

Child Labour – Safe Jobs: Always a safe first Law and incredibly powerful. Absolutely necessary in Survival Mode.
Child Shelters: Can be quite a hassle early on as you have to spend resources and heated space for the building, even if Medic/Engineer Helpers can be nice. But since you practically have to take Child Labour on harder difficulties to survive, there isn’t really a choice here. Get them little guys to work.

Soup: I always take Soup, it’s just too good. Gives more food and adds manageable Discontent only. This can even be reduced with Moonshine (Law).
Food Additives: Saw dust in the food sounds great and all but it will additionally fill your Med Posts. No thanks, ‘eat’ Soup!

Radical Treatment: Improves Med Post throughput, resulting in the occasional Amputee, whom can later be given a Prosthesis and fully work again.
Sustain Life: Gravely Ill block space in Med Posts, lowering throughput until they are either healed (Infirmary, House of Healing, Dispensary) or put into a Care House. Manageable, but can get out of hand.

Cemetery: Has only a small impact on the game, especially since you don’t want people to die anyway (I hope), making it’s major benefit rather irrelevant in most cases.
Corpse Disposal: The main benefit comes from the follow up Law: Organ Transplants. The additional 20% healing completely outclasses Cemetery. It doesn’t even require actual corpses, contrary to Organic Fertiliser Law. Triggers minor Events that can even benefit your Hope Level.

Emergency Shift: The first use is certainly very good. Second use will always kill one of the people at this workplace. Next uses might kill people, unless Emergency Shift Workers are always given Food Rations (through a respective Event asking for it).

Extended Shift: Really, really good. But don’t use it in too many places at once. The Discontent stacks up quite fast and you might not notice how dependable you are on the extra resources. If push comes to shove, you barely make enough coal and you suddenly get forced to stop the Extended Shifts and you are suddenly in danger of freezing.

Order/Faith is mostly fluff. The main differences are described below.
Order: The Foreman ability is a massive efficiency boost to workplaces. Guard Stations require at least one person.
Faith: House of Healing is a very practical and better alternative to Med Posts. Also churches do not require any people to function.

Information

All images are taken from [link] under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license[www.fandom.com] or screenshots taken by myself.

Frostpunk Guides for concrete missions (focus on Survival Mode, but can be applied to any difficulty)

A New Home Survival: [link]
Fall of Winterhome Survival: [link]

Happy surviving everyone!